Day in the life: Greig Cosier

A day in the life of Greig Cosier sees him at work from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. As a custodian at UVic for the past 17 years, Cosier works when most people have gone home, but that hasn’t stopped him from being an active member of the university community.

Cosier has worked in several campus buildings and is currently located in University Centre. “My work is guided by the policies of health and safety and professional cleaning,” he explains. “I clean washrooms, open areas, single offices, kitchenettes, foyers; I also clean windows and do floor and carpet care and I secure the building.”

Cosier is interested in the work being done in Admissions and Records, Graduate Admissions and the International Office. “I had no idea what they do until I started to clean there,” he says. “And I’ve come to admire them all for the work they all do.”

While working in Cunningham, he started an award for the hardest-working graduate student, based on who was still working at midnight when he was cleaning. Now that he has moved to a different building, several profs choose the recipient, who receives the UVic Custodian’s Trophy given by Cosier on behalf of all the janitors. He donates a dinner for 12 to the winner, to enjoy a meal with friends. He also donates bursary funds to microbiology. “I love supporting the sciences,” he says, and enjoys attending biology and microbiology symposia “and the parties afterwards.”

Cosier’s first encounter with UVic was in the 1960s when he was one of the first participants in the psychology department’s pioneering rehab centre for learning disabilities. When he returned as a custodian in 1991, he met the centre’s head, who was pleased to see him working at UVic.

Outside work, most of Cosier’s time is spent “giving back to the community” as he describes it. His favourite hobby is being Chuckles the Clown, which he started doing five or six years ago. “It makes people’s day,” he laughs. Several times a year, he wears his outfit downtown. “The kids follow me, cars honk, parents love it.” He creates his costume from things he finds at Value Village, including over-sized shoes that he painted. A dressmaker recently made him some fancy new clown trousers. He wears a big, pumpkin orange wig, but no face paint, as it is too hard to wash off before it’s time to go to work.

The Day in the Life series features the diversity of UVic employees who, often working behind the scenes, contribute so much to university life. If you would like to suggest someone to profile, please contact Linda Sproule-Jones at 721-8786 or sproulel@uvic.ca.